Orinda City Councilman Steve Glazer,
fighting an expensive Assembly campaign in the East Bay against Dublin
Mayor and fellow Democrat Tim Sbranti, is under attack
suggesting his town is home to "some of the worst road conditions" in
the Bay Area.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Orinda City Councilman Steve Glazer,
fighting an expensive...

Image 8 of 9

An attack mailer aimed at Steve Glazer, an Assembly candidate in the East Bay running in the June 2014 primary. The piece was put out by Californians for Economic Prosperity, an independent expenditure group that supports one of Glazer's opponents, Tim Sbranti.

Photo: Californians For Economic Prospe

An attack mailer aimed at Steve Glazer, an Assembly candidate in...

Image 9 of 9

Eric Swalwell speaks with Tim Sbranti, mayor of Dublin, at an election campaign headquarter in 2012. Sbranti is battling Steve Glazer in a state Assembly campaign.

Even in a state where campaign mudslinging can be over the top, the attacks ahead of Tuesday's primary election rank as some of the muddiest yet.

In the South Bay, congressional candidate Ro Khanna has been lambasted in a mailer by the fellow Democrat he is trying to unseat, Rep. Mike Honda of San Jose, for overspending - at age 19, at the University of Chicago, when his student government went $100 in the red.

Orinda City Councilman Steve Glazer, fighting an expensive Assembly campaign in the East Bay against Dublin Mayor and fellow Democrat Tim Sbranti, is under attack in spots suggesting his town is home to "some of the worst road conditions" in the Bay Area - a charge that might surprise residents of the tony community.

Elsewhere in the East Bay, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, is being vilified in a mailer from his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Ellen Corbett of San Leandro, for voting in favor of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget. The problem: He didn't.

Top-two fallout

The bad blood underscores how California's top-two primary system - under which the leading two finishers advance to the November general election, regardless of party - is leading to intensified campaign attacks, especially in races pitting moderate Democrats against more liberal, labor-backed candidates.

The result is a trend toward what McCuan calls "junk-food politics," or " 'House of Cards' meets McDonald's" - attention-grabbing campaigning aimed at getting the blood pumping, but offering little substance.

Jessica Levinson, a professor of government and political ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, calls it the "TMZ-ization of our elections."

"Is it our fault that we are totally uninformed (about political candidates) but we know what Kim Kardashian wore to her wedding?" Levinson asked.

All's fair

In this year's primary, which by all accounts is attracting few voters' attention, campaign strategists' approach appears to be, "Anything that is not defamation or slander is fair game," Levinson said.

Some of the most unusual efforts come from independent expenditure groups, which by law are barred from coordinating with a candidate - giving deniability to the politician who benefits.

In the South Bay congressional race, for example, a labor-backed political action committee called Working for Us that supports Honda sent out two mailers this week - one backing the Democratic incumbent and one supporting a Republican candidate, Vanila Singh, as the candidate who can "stop unwarranted government intrusion in our lives."

It's a message more from the playbook of the Tea Party than a Democratic labor group. But then, Singh would be a far less formidable general-election opponent for Honda in the strongly Democratic district than Khanna.

Honda attacks

It was Honda's campaign itself that sent out a recent mailer attacking Khanna's student-government spending. It even cited the meetings Khanna missed as a volunteer on a local parks and recreation commission.

Honda press secretary Vivek Kembaiyan said the attacks were relevant because Khanna, an attorney and first-time candidate, has a skimpy political background.

"In each of these instances, it shows he has not followed through ... and his record is something the voters should know about," Kembaiyan said.

In the East Bay congressional contest, Corbett has launched equally pointed attacks as she tries to define herself as the true progressive in the race.

Her accusation that Swalwell voted for Ryan's Republican budget, however, drew a denunciation even from the progressive online site Daily Kos, which termed it "an absolute lie."

Budget votes

The liberal Democratic spending plan was also opposed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and several other Bay Area Democrats. Swalwell later joined every other House Democrat in voting against Ryan's budget.

Swalwell's campaign manager, Lisa Tucker, said the "over the top" mischaracterization was the product of a campaign that is flying under most people's radar.

"I don't know if they think it's because it's a lower turnout election, that less attention is being paid by voters - and they can get away with it," she said. "It's just wrong."

Skelton says Swalwell, for his part, has been guilty of "personal attacks, made up of whole cloth," regarding votes that Corbett has supposedly missed in the state Senate.

Assembly fight

There's equal passion in the Assembly race pitting Glazer, who is campaigning to ban BART strikes, against three other candidates including Sbranti, a onetime head of a teachers union political action committee who has attracted backing from independent labor groups.

Glazer has suggested that Sbranti is in labor's pocket, while Sbranti's backers are trying to tie the Orinda councilman to big tobacco - reminding voters that he has consulted with a California Chamber of Commerce political action committee that received donations from Philip Morris.

Among the swipes at Glazer is a suggestion that he's responsible for the supposedly atrocious conditions of streets in a town where the median home price is $1.3 million.

McCuan, the Sonoma State political science professor, called that one a head-scratcher - considering that the biggest road hazard in Orinda may be "someone with a yoga mat coming out of Starbucks."